Christmas was an opportunity for another angry, anti-American speech from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but just another working day for United Nations inspectors trying to determine whether he is hiding nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

Weapons inspectors were today banned from entering locked rooms in Iraq’s Communicable Disease Control Centre and were forced to use its hotline to higher Baghdad authorities for the first time.

THE US government has received a credible report that Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaida took possession of a chemical weapon in Iraq last month or late in October, it was reported yesterday.

International nuclear monitors struck out across the Iraqi desert today, heading for a remote uranium mining site, officials in Baghdad said.

Iraq’s report on chemical, biological and nuclear programmes will not include any admission that Baghdad still maintains weapons of mass destruction, a senior Iraqi official said today.

INTERNATIONAL inspectors arrived at one of Saddam Hussein’s presidential palaces yesterday and demanded and received quick entry, in an early test of new powers to hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.